


Waiting Game

by Bates



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Coma, Doctor!Castiel, Hospital, Kid Fic, M/M, fluffy at some points, possible death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-05
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2018-02-20 00:41:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2408837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bates/pseuds/Bates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel Novak has just seen his husband roll through the doors of his ER, there is no way the kids are okay and he is stressing out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting Game

 

I can't get to bed  
But I'm really tired  
The things in my head  
You used to admire  
In your sundrenched world  
It couldn't be worse  
Don't bother asking  
  
**Sundrenched world - Joshua Radin**

 

 **July, 2010 – Lawrence Memorial Hospital**  
  
It had been a long but calm day in the Emergency Room. The night shift was slowly nearing its’ end, seven AM slowly coming nearer and nearer. Only twenty minutes now. If he’d hurry, he could still catch Dean before he headed off to work at John’s garage. Since they both had started working full time and the adoption, their relationship had been put through a lot. The two rarely had a day off together that they could spend with just the five of them. Yes, they had quick visits, Dean bringing the kids along to the hospital if he had the day off just to see him for a quick minute and bring him his food. When Dean was working, Cas would drop by the garage with all three kids and they'd grab lunch together.  
  
Today, Castiel was counting the minutes until he could go back to Dean. The night had been slow, a few scrapes and bruises, broken bones, but nothing all too major. Castiel wasn’t complaining about that, he’d pick a calm day over a busy one any day, but the thing that had bothered him was how slow everything was going. All he wanted was to go back home to Dean, was that too much to ask?  
  
He almost groaned when they rushed two stretchers a few minutes before his shift was due to end. He had heard about the fact that they had five car crash victims coming in, but had secretly hoped that he’d already be gone by the time that the ambulance reached the hospital. He knew that he'd just get paged back with the lack of another doctor to cover for him in case they were short on staff, but at least he would have had the illusion of being free from work for a few seconds.  
  
It was with a sigh that he started preparing the station for the first victim, the one that had been hit the hardest. He was in a terrible state, he was barely conscious, but still conscious and that was the most important. At least, that had been the last he heard of it. He wasn't sure if he was still around.  
  
“You need to stay silent sir,” he heard one of the ambulance paramedics say to the victim as he desperately tried to speak. “Save your strength.” The patient tried to speak again, Castiel could hear the voice in the background. He hoped that the victim was better off than he sounded.  
  
“We didn’t find his ID in the car.”  
  
“Okay,” Castiel grumbled. If the victim didn’t have an ID, it made all the paperwork that much more difficult. “That doesn’t matter, we’ll get his details later. Get me two units of O positive blood ready, the poor man has -” Turning around was the biggest mistake that he had ever made. On the stretcher lay an all too familiar man, wounded, beat up, broken. Castiel felt the blood in his veins turn into ice, his muscles locked up.  
  
“Doctor?”  
  
“Go fetch Dr. Harvelle, tell her that she has to switch patients with me,” he snapped at a nurse. “She's in the other room, just down the hall.” He felt guilty for his outburst, but didn’t have an option. “Now. Change the O positive blood to A positive, three units, now.” It was in a haze that he started working, cutting open the shirt – it had been Dean's favorite shirt, the only one of the worn out shirts that Castiel had allowed him to keep when they moved in together that hadn't been ruined by throw up or other baby secretions – but brushing the necklace out of the way. Dean would freak out if he knew that Sam's necklace got damaged.  
  
There seemed to be blood coming from everywhere. There was huge jab in his abdomen, his ribs were broken for sure, he didn't even want to know how much pressure there was in his skull right now. Dean's right leg was laying in the most awkward angle. It all was too much for Castiel. Even though he worked, he could barely make his hands move. His hands trembled. He almost dropped the gauze that he was using, because he was shaking too damn hard.  
  
“Cas...”  
  
“It's going to be okay,” he muttered to Dean, stroking his hand, placing a quick kiss on his hand. His lips came away red and sticky with blood. “Just hang on for me, okay? Can you do that? Damn it, I can't do this. I can't. Jo will patch you up, she'll make you better.”  
  
“The kids,” Dean muttered urgently. “In the car.” His head slumped down against the pillow, eyes falling shut.  
  
  
  
Castiel was barely holding it together by the time that Jo arrived. At first, he had though that he'd be fine under all of it, but now, now he knew that he was only kidding himself. She looked at him with an expression that he could not place. It was somewhere between annoyance - of being thorn away from her patient that she had only just gotten around to treating - and worry - because Castiel did never leave a patient unless something serious was going on. He was more than panic flowing through his veins as he waited anxiously until the second ambulance arrived with the kids in it.  
  
"I need you to take over," Castiel muttered weakly. He knew what he had to look like to the other doctor. “It's against hospital policy for me to...” He almost choked on his own words. “Fuck, I just can't treat Dean okay?”  
  
  
  
Fifteen minutes later, he sat in the ER's waiting area, a steaming cup of coffee in his hands. Dean still hadn't been cleared, Jo was still working on him and well, he was anxious, more than anxious. He had been in a horrible state when Castiel had switched patients, he had been fighting for his life even. That he had heard Code blue – ER Room 02 minutes after abandoning Dean and hurrying over to the waiting room to see the kids. The other doctor that was supposed to take over his shift arrived anyway so he could get the hell out of there, sort of. He was still there, he just wasn't working.  
  
When the kids had eventually been brought in through ambulance, it wasn't pretty. He could hear the cries from down the hallway. He'd rushed over, but had been forbidden from seeing them or even get information as the doctors worked at first.  
  
His fingers slid around the cup absent-mindedly. He had to keep busy in order not to break down. He ran around on barely any sleep, but he didn't care. Dean was in there somewhere and he couldn't help him. Damn, the kids were in there somewhere and he couldn't help them either. He didn't have the guts to help his own damn husband after a freaking car crash. Exactly how pathetic was he?  
  
“Dr. Novak?” A nurse approached him, thee clipboards with papers in hand. “I know that you don't want to do this right now, I understand, but we need the information.”  
  
“Ellen Winchester-Novak, aged seven, birthday the seventeenth of march, born 2003. Her blood type is AB+, she has never been through surgery and she is not allergic to anything,” he rattled before the nurse had to say more. “Michael Winchester-Novak, thirteen months old, born June second 2009, two months early. Adjusted age eleven months old, B+, never had surgery either. Lucy Winchester-Novak, thirteen months old, born June second 2009, two months early. Adjusted age eleven months old, B+, been through surgery once to close her PDA but was fine after. I don't know if the twins are allergic to anything, nothing had come up yet.”  
  
“Okay.” She scribbled the answers on the paper. “The doc will inform you in a second. I don't know the specifics. And Dean?”  
  
This time, he had to swallow before he could speak, throat clamped shut. “Dean Winchester, thirty-one years old, born the twenty-sixth of January, 1979. He has never been through surgery and isn't allergic to anything but cats. Blood type A+.” He handed her the insurance card. “That's the insurance for everybody. Ellen is under my name, the twins are under Dean's. The information is about the same. Is there anything else you need?”  
  
“No, that'll do,” the nurse promised, hurrying to get the right information to the right doctor. It left Castiel alone again, alone and defeated. His whole family was hurt and there was nothing that he could do to fix that.  
  
  
  
A little while later he got the information he wanted. Ellen was doing okay. They were currently taking glass out of her wounds and she would need a cast around her leg but she was fine otherwise. There was no surgery needed to correct the break, the bones were still in place. Complaining about a headache, but _okay_. The twins had been moved to the PICU and were getting looked over there, but there didn't seem to be anything too major going on with them either. The doc couldn't be sure though.  
  
Castiel followed the doctor to the little room where they were taking care of Ellen, even though he could have just followed the cries. Ellen was being brave he knew, only whimpered when the pieces were actually pulled out.  
  
“Just one more,” he heard a nurse say to her in a soothing tone before he entered the room, he could hear Ellen suck in breath. “And we're done, you've been very brave girl. That would do your father proud.” Ellen was sitting on a stretcher, hospital gown over her favourite jeans, now bloody and thorn at the knees. Her shirt lay discarded in front of her, thorn to shreds.  
  
He was next to her in three steps, crouching down a little so her could give her a once over. She seemed to be fine otherwise, except for the leg so clearly broken. There were tears streaming from her eyes, but she put on such a brave face that the doctor was right. She was making her father proud.  
  
“Daddy!”  
  
“Hey kiddo,” he forced a slight smile on his lips. “The doc told me you've been very brave.”  
  
“It hurts daddy,” she whimpered as the doctor re-entered the room with the casting kit.  
  
“I know,” he said, pressing a kiss to her auburn locks, “but can you be brave for your daddy just a little bit longer? They're going to cast your leg now. You'll have a funny looking robot foot and maybe if you ask the kind doctor real nice, you'll even have a pink one.” Ellen looked up to the doctor, a hopeful smile covering her lips now.  
  
“Really?”  
  
“If you want pink, it'll be pink for the princess.” Ellen got her princes pink cast, which had made her forget most of the pain as she clung to Castiel’s back, arms wrapped around his neck. The twins were both still in PICU when he arrived at the floor, sleeping in beds that made them look tiny, even tinier than they already were. Both were hooked up to monitors, but the readings were stable, their oxygen great and heartbeats steady.  
  
“We’re just monitoring them for now,” the regular paediatrician promised Castiel, “if their readings remain stable through the night, they will be discharged tomorrow morning. If you’d been a little faster, you might have seen them awake, they only recently fell asleep.”  
  
Castiel and Ellen sat with them for a little while, Ellen sitting on Castiel’s lap, sleepy from the medicine that they had given her for the pain. At least they’d had the decency to put them in one room, so that he didn’t have to go back and forth to check on both of them.  
  
“You can go to sleep,” Cas promised her, “I’ll wake you up when you can go see daddy.” A scrawny intern pulled his attention away from his thought a little later, two hours after their arrival at the Emergency Room. “Dr. Harvelle send me to say that you should see her patient?” From the forced way he was behaving, Castiel just knew that he knew who her patient was, but that he was afraid to say the words.  
  
  
  
When he walked through the doors of Dean’s hospital room, Castiel had to do a double take. Just seeing Dean like that brought tears to his eyes, his world spinning around him. The only thing that was in focus, was Dean. _His_ Dean.  
  
It wasn’t right. Unnatural. Dean was not supposed to be there, not with a tube to make him breathe, not with all those machines around him. There were so many bruises on his body, so many cuts, he lay so still.  
  
Dean almost looked like he had fought a battle and lost. The most of the blood had been cleaned off of him, but there were stubborn spots, his hair, his little peach fuss that Castiel had been teasing him about, the crook of his mouth.  
  
“Dean,” he whispered softly as he sat down next to him, taking his hand in his. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry baby. You shouldn’t have to be here.” He blinked away the tears that stung in his eyes. He wouldn’t allow himself to cry, not when he knew that Jo was behind him, not with Ellen in his arms, her head resting against his shoulder, peacefully asleep. “What’s the verdict?” He whispered the words, afraid of waking her up.  
  
“Vasogenic edema,” she said, “serious fracturing to his ribs, his lung was punctured, he has shattered his hip. For the other things, we’ll have to wait for him to wake up.”  
  
“What else did the CT scan show?”  
  
“Nothing except for the edema. His brain looked good enough,” Jo said, “we’ll have to take him back later to test his activity, but I think that considering nothing was severed, there is a good chance that we’ll see beautiful activity. I’ll leave you two alone. He’ll be fine, Castiel.” Jo placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.  
  
He heard the close behind him. “Dean. You’ll pull through, you hear me. Even if I have to drag you back from heaven myself, you’ll stay with me. There is no leaving me behind.” His hands stroke Dean's, fingers trailing along the bones in his hands. “You can't leave me behind, Ellen needs her father, Michael and Lucy adore you. Don't give up on them.”  
  
Ellen opened her eyes sleepily when Cas brushed her hair out of her face. She looked up from his shoulder confused.  
  
“We’re with daddy,” he said, “it can be a bit of a shock seeing him like this, okay?” He found himself using the voice that he always did with his own patients. “But I promise you daddy Dean will be okay.” He couldn’t promise her, but had to at the same time.  
  
The look that crossed her eyes was painful. Tears hidden in those beautiful golden eyes, together with fear.  
  
  
A few minutes later, he had made the most difficult phone call in his life thus far. Sam picked up on the second ring, expecting Dean, but ended up more than a little bit surprised when it was Castiel's voice answering him. Castiel can hear the anxiousness in his own voice has he retells what happens over the phone.  
  
“We’ll be there in fifteen,” Sam promises before hanging up and leaving Castiel alone yet again. He doesn't even know how late it is, how long he's been sitting there with Dean's hand in his and Ellen sleeping in his lap, but he knows that it takes too long, that his memories take him to times far, far gone.

 

  
  
**June 1996 - New York**  
  
Sweat glistered on Castiel’s brow as he pushed the last of his boxes up the light flight of stairs. He had no clue how he had managed to get that much stuff in his years of living at home with his siblings. This was the fourth box that was filled to the brim and he’d left at least half of the things that he had wanted to take back at home because it didn’t fit into his car.  
  
The heat felt even heavier inside, where there was just one fan blowing cold air into the three floor dormitory. He hoped that his roommate had brought an entire army of fans or otherwise, there was no way that he’d ever get any sleep in in the following week. With temperatures reaching the low thirties and the air about as dry as it was going to get, things would get annoying.  
  
The door of his dorm, room 306 was already opened to a crack, light filtering out alongside some incredibly loud cusses.  
  
“God damn Sammy. I told you, _fans_! How could you forget them?!” _Oh for the love of God_. Castiel pushed the door open after knocking, looking up into a pair of very annoyed, green eyes.  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“My name is Castiel,” he said, looking at the two men, head cocked to the side, a little confused. “Your roommate I suppose?”  
  
“Good,” Green eyes said, stretching out his hand. Hesitantly, Castiel took it and shook his hand. “Please tell me you brought fans, because _somebody_ forgot to pack them for me. I’m Dean, by the way. Winchester. This is my brother Sammy.”  
  
“Sam,” the other interjected, looking at his brother with an annoyed look in his eyes, “and I didn’t _forget_ the fans, they’re in here somewhere.”  
  
“I hate to disappoint you,” Castiel said, slightly embarrassed, “but I didn’t count the heat in when packing. So, I’m afraid that I cannot supply you with fans.”  
  
“Found them!” Sam said proudly, holding up a box clearly labelled ‘ _fans_ ’, “I told you that I’d packed them!” Not a minute later, the blissful cool of two fans blasting at full power filled the room. Castiel let himself cool down for a minute, before continuing his unpacking. He should have decided to study in Canada, not in the warmest place in the entire universe. If the tiny room was already an oven now, he didn't want to know what it would be like if the heat wave continued.  
  
Castiel started unpacking his books first, stacking them on top of his desk until he could find a spot to put them. Half of his books were for his courses anyway, so he'd need them somewhere where he could quickly grab the before heading out to his classes or working on his paper.  
  
Dean's brother Sam stayed until Dean was all unpacked and his bed was made. Sam only left because he had school the following day, or something of the sorts and needed to get up in a decent hour. Apparently, the car ride that he'd have to take was a long one. Castiel hadn't listened in as Dean had left his brother out. He was glad that he had the room for himself for a little while, so he could put away his clothes in the fashion that he preferred. He didn't object to Dean or his brother being there as he arranged clothes, it wasn't that, it was just that his methods were thorough, shirts with shirts sorted by both length of the sleeves and colour, jeans and dress pants sorted in separate piles. Being laughed at by his roommate on day one wasn't something that he looked forward to.  
  
Almost half of the clothing that he had brought would probably be tucked away for a few months if the heat was persistent enough, like it had been the past year. Castiel did not look forward to spending another month being sweaty, with clothing stuck to his skin and showers during both the mornings and evenings, just to get the feeling of sweat out of his system.  
  
"Don't get me wrong," Dean said after falling down on his bed, "I love the Sasquatch, but damn am I glad that he's gone back home. He takes up too much damn space."  
  
"Oh, trust me," Castiel said with a smirk on his lips as he unpacked his typewriter and set it on the desk on his side of the room, "I get what you mean." When he thought about his brothers and sister, or well, most of his siblings, he felt affection. Not that he shared that with every sibling. "I am glad that I finally have the opportunity to get away from my family for a little while."  
  
"You got brothers or sisters?"  
  
"Yes," he said, "I have five; Luke, Michael, Gabe, Anna and Raph, so it's quite the busy household. Do you have any siblings, beside Sam?"  
  
"No, it's just me and Sammy," he said, "I think that mom would have liked a daughter, but the house was too crowded already with two growing boys." When Dean spoke, Castiel noticed the fond smile on his lips.  
  
"You have a good bound with your brother," he remarked, looking up from the last of his books that he tried to stack in a futile attempt to actually have room to put them. He'd need to find a place to store them for a little while to keep his desk from overflowing with books.  
  
"Yeah," Dean said with a smile on his lips, "he's my baby brother, even though he's already taller than I am. Don't you have a good relationship with your siblings?"  
  
"I do have a good relationship with them," Castiel said, "just not with everybody. Anna and Gabriel will probably barge in the door when they feel it just. I adore them very much, but the eldest twins, Lucifer and Michael and Raphael, who is one year younger, I rarely see. That is one of the downsides of being the youngest of the family." He shrugged. "They moved out a few years ago."  
  
"Want to go grab a bite of food? I'm starving."  
  
The pizza parlor was buzzing with customers. The heat of the ovens lingered even in the dining area, the fans that hung from the ceiling not working the way that they were supposed to. Castiel didn't quite grasp the attraction to pizza on a warm day, but Dean had insisted that he needed the grease and that it was the fastest possibility. Apparently, it was also the warmest of them all. A burger or fries, he had been okay with, but damn.  
  
By the time that the two boys got a table and their pizzas served, Castiel too was starving. Suddenly, the idea of pizza was more than good. Never had a pizza tasted better than that exact moment. He saw Dean take him in amusement.  
  
"I thought you weren't hungry?"  
  
"You had me wait here for fifteen minutes with the delicious scent of pizza around me," he said, wiping the grease from his mouth with one of the napkins, "of course I am hungry." He sees Dean chuckle before taking another bite and can't stop a little smile himself.  
  
  
  
**July, 2010 – Lawrence Memorial Hospital**  
  
Sam's hand on Castiel's shoulder was what pulled him out of his thoughts. He felt oddly disconnected as he looked up at the other man's face, only after a few minutes realizing that it was indeed Sam.  
  
“How are they doing?” he seemed to be genuinely worried.  
  
“Stable as far as I know, he's stable for now,” Castiel said. “He’s got edema in his brain, serious fracturing in his ribs a punctured lung, a shattered hip and that may not be all of it.” Castiel knew that he shouldn’t sugarcoat it, not with Sam. “There is a chance that he may not come out of this well. But on a more positive side, his brain looks good. They think that he’ll pull through, but it’s too early to tell.”  
  
“And the kids?”  
  
“They are okay,” he muttered, pressing a kiss in Ellen’s hair. She stirred in his arms, but didn’t wake up. “Ellen has some cuts and her leg is broken, but she is otherwise fine. The twins are in PICU, but they just want to observe them until tomorrow, to be sure.”  
  
“Okay,” Sam breathes, looking at his broken brother in the hospital bed. “Hey, man, do you want me to take her for a little while? I mean, if you need coffee or tea or anything.”  
  
“Thanks.” He’s out of the room in a matter of seconds.  
  
  
  
  
**September 1996 - New York**  
  
Things with Dean were uncomfortable at first, but they warmed up to each other and soon enough, they were inseparable. They hung out at cafés, talked and had late night conversations about the past. Dean learned that Castiel likes to sleep in long PJ pants, no matter how warm it is, that he always needs a blanket, that he hates it when people smoke, but somehow seems to be forgiving towards Dean when he smokes. Cas realizes that Sam is all that Dean has left, that Sam is Dean’s whole world.  
  
Every Saturday, Sam comes over and they go out to eat, all three of them. Dean, Sam and Castiel become each other’s best friends. Cas’s brothers never showed up, but he did not expect them to come either. Anna did show up, and he loved her for it.  
  
Dean also learns that Cas is adorable when he sleeps, and that those lips are lips that he’d love to kiss. He didn’t know what to do with that information at first, but got over his freak out pretty quickly.  
  
Being queer was something that many thought of as unnatural, weird. Dean had thought the exact thing for quite a while. Now, the gears in his head were running, the flick switched. It wasn’t weird, it just, happened to you. Somebody can’t decide if he or she is queer or not.  
  
Dean felt miserable trying to deny to himself that he was bi sexual. Cas caught onto it, knew that he was behaving off, but ignored it for a few weeks. Dean was grateful for that, glad that he did not have to explain himself to Cas.  
  
Until Castiel did ask and Dean told him, hesitantly. He told him that he just found out he was queer, upon which Cas just gently smiled and nodded, saying ‘ _welcome to the club_ ’ before sitting down next to him.  
  
“Why are you so troubled?” Castiel asked him. “It’s just knowing which gender you love.” Cas asked the question quietly, clearly a little guarded.  
  
“Have you seen what they do?” Dean asked, eyes wide. “Have you ever seen a couple walk down the street without getting yelled at? Without getting harassed?”  
  
“Dean,” Cas sighed, shaking his head slightly. “I don’t know how you think the world is around queer people, but our community isn’t as weak as you may think.”  
  
  
  
What happened next was two or three more awkward weeks, in which the air between them suddenly felt three or four times more tense than before. The tension wasn’t the same awkwardness as before though, no, it was almost, sexual? Dean wasn’t entirely sure.  
  
What he did know that he found himself staring at Cas more, at his muscle, his beautiful eyes and that tired expression that he always wears. How he likes his coffee black and his tea hot. He adores pizza, but is like his brother Sammy and does prefer something healthy once in a while.  
  
He spends hours with that freaking typewriter, working on his papers. Dean loves watching him work, completely absorbed in whatever he was doing. Maybe that was weird, but he loved it and quite frankly, he didn’t care.  
  
**August, 2010 – Lawrence Memorial Hospital**  
  
Even though it shouldn’t have taken long for Dean to wake up, he didn’t. Castiel tried his hardest to stay professional and work through the rough patch, dropping the kids off at his mother’s and Mary and John’s, telling them each time that he didn’t know either _when_ Dean would pull through. He never said _if_ even though he thought it, even though he thought it over and over again. And the truth was that he was freaking scared. Scared that Dean wouldn’t pull through, that he wouldn’t come back to them all.  
  
The situation broke his heart. Coming home late and seeing Ellen up, waiting for him to say goodnight, asking for her dad each night. It wasn’t even just Dean that she asked for, she asked for him too. When he would be home more often, when he would be their daddy again.  
  
His shift at the hospital had ended about an hour ago, but he couldn’t tear himself away from Dean. He was exhausted, sweaty and would probably have to eat soon or else he would collapse, but he didn’t care. Not really.  
  
Castiel had created this habit of going to his room and talking to Dean, about how the twins were doing and how Ellen was turning into the kindest little girl that he had ever seen. Sometimes he actually responded, by lightly squeezing or the trembling of eyelids, but that had been it. Nothing else.  
  
“Cas…” It was soft and nothing but muttered, but it made him snap his attention up at Dean, Dean who was still battered and bruised, but _alive_. Looking down at him with confusion and sadness and pain in his eyes. Dean who was back. Dean who wouldn’t leave him, not again. Never again.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! c: As always, you can find me at [Tumblr](http://imaginecas.tumblr.com).


End file.
